


Family

by lferion



Series: Iron and Light [6]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Community: hobbitadvent, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bifur thinks about family</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hobbit Advent day 25, prompt - Family. 
> 
> This goes in the Iron and Light AU.

* * *

Family was where you found it, thought Bifur, hands busy with the little figure taking shape beneath his knife. Family came in all shapes and sizes and assortments. Kin wasn't quite the same — one didn't have a choice in one's kin, not who they were or the fact that they were related. Kin and Clan were not really choices. The little block of red oak gained a truncated cone of fringe, a comfortably round midsection. Kin could be family, family could be kin. Bombur and Bofur (a section of a black oak branch with two bright little eye-knots waited in his pouch) were kin and family both.

Family could be found anywhere, any time, and was — sometimes under the most surprising of circumstances. Family didn't stop being family if they lived far away. Home wasn't the same as family, though they often had a good deal in common. Bilbo was family now, in the Shire, in Rivendell, wherever he chose to be. Even dead, people were still family. Or hovering somewhere between this world and the Maker's Halls. 

A fortnight, Bifur spent in the deep chamber each evening, carving. On the last night (though he would continue to visit, not that kind of last) he finished the final figure, the one it had taken him the longest to decide to carve at all, and then what wood to use. Not oak — red white, black, or golden — for all it seemed the obvious choice. Nor ash, beech, holly, hazel, rowan or walnut. He considered yew, fingering a well-seasoned piece in long contemplation before taking up a hawthorn branch instead. Hawthorn held more hope. More of life. He set all the figures on a narrow shelf made by one of the bands of carving that embellished the wall. One for each member of the Company, Thorin himself included.

Because the Company was family. in life and death and in between.


End file.
